The string series public workshop + performances

On May 20, artist Latifa Medjdoub will work with the public in a workshop setting at MP+D to conceive elaborate and intricate fiber sculptures integrating materials gleaned from the waste stream. Combining mundane objects with sophisticated textile art techniques, the workshop will stimulate creative social interactions while exploring notions of space, time, and movement.

This experience with the public will culminate on May 23rd and May 25th with two social performances called Eurythmy at Studio Grand Oakland and Museum of Performance + Design. Eurythmy is a social performance inspired by nature’s energy and rhythmical order. It invites an active public to reflect on the multiple levels of interconnectedness between individuals and in networks.

At the performance, the public will use sculptural modular elements and collaborate on the construction of a vast ephemeral flexible architecture in relation to environmental sound designed by Japanese artist Haco. Through this unparalleled artistic experience, participants will gradually be transported within an expansive soft fiber-sculpture and invited to creatively respond to the network topology they built, embodying at once a sense of diversity, interrelationship, and unity.

See details for the public workshop and performance below. Participants are welcome to take part in either the public workshop on May 20 or the public performances on May 23 and May 25th, or both.

In addition,

MP+D is partnering with Latifa and inviting select communities to take part in a site-responsive, educational workshops between May 19 - 25, 2017. These workshops invite sensory and social interactions using handcrafted fiber sculptures and encourage reflections on the action of sharing and combining efforts in the act of creation.

In these workshops, participants will first use a set of handcrafted strings and open up to a social practice to reflect on the quality of energy that links everything together and experiment with movements and perspectives in time and space.

Participants will then work with a set of recycled items ranging from fiber, paper, plastic or metal to form a string or rope-like open ended segment. They will study systems of formal imbrication, intertwined sequences, modulating rhythmic organizations of selected items while demonstrating a correlation between structure and sustainability.

In our age of social media networking, this innovative artistic approach pushes mental and physical boundaries, questioning our presence and responsibility to each other, challenging individual and shared perception and communication, and allowing an immersive space of self as well as a transformative collective experience to foster the idea that art makes us look at the world in fresh, new, and restorative ways.

Community workshops (by appointment only):

Duration: 2-3hrsMay 19 - 25, 2017(Unavailable May 19th, 10am -12noon)Morning and afternoon sessions are open from 10-12 am and 1-3pmThe workshops are adaptable to fit any ages and condition.Sliding scale: $10 - 20Schools and low income communities are invited on a donation base with a suggested scale of $5-8 per person per hour(Please wear comfortable clothing)

Latifa Medjdoubis a visual artist and social art practitioner whose work is conceived through its synthesis of sculpture, painting, photography, installation and performance art often using textile art as a central mode of communication. She was born in France from Algerian descent and lives and works in Portland, Oregon.

Since 2013, she has developed social art projects which successfully transcend cultural divides such as the Roots, placing the public in an active self-reflective and meditative mode of dialogue in order to engage awareness. Her extensive experience in the diverse fields of performance and design among outstanding international artists allowed her to study the social behavior in the expression of acting and to conceive elaborate and intricate artistic tools stimulating creative social interactions, communication and social transformation. Latifa Medjdoub’s recent work focuses on the question of identity and social construction, a study she calls ID#, captivating a psychological portrait of modern societies in the fast-paced stream of information.

Latifa Medjdoub has developed and adapted original and collaborative workshops, public practice and installations with diverse communities whether educational, non-profit or corporate. She has been a visiting artist and lecturer at universities and high schools and institutions. Her work has been shown internationally in Museums, galleries and events. Medjdoub’s work can be found in private collections internationally.